Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hello from Northern CA!

I'm a bass player that formed a Grateful Dead tribute band about 7 months ago. This site has been a great resource for me as I try to find my way around these tunes! I've got two Fender basses, a P bass and a Jazz. I play the P bass with flats through a tube amp for the Dead project. I've never played Grateful Dead before so it's taking alot of practice as the setlist grows and I, of course, am still Searching for the Sound.

Welcome! I ended up playing set 2 on my P-bass with flats on Saturday and it does a pretty good job. Also Kevin from DSO does the same thing.

Thanks for the welcome Rusty the Scoob! As I'm learning these songs, one of the things I do when I'm trying to get ideas is to not only listen to how Phil plays them, but to garner ideas from lots of other tribute band's bass players. I get a lot of "aha" moments that way. So I'm always checking out Fennario's youtube videos and have checked out the video lessons you've posted as well.

welcome aboard, dude!

Thanks strummin!

Walknbluez wrote:Thanks for the welcome Rusty the Scoob! As I'm learning these songs, one of the things I do when I'm trying to get ideas is to not only listen to how Phil plays them, but to garner ideas from lots of other tribute band's bass players. I get a lot of "aha" moments that way. So I'm always checking out Fennario's youtube videos and have checked out the video lessons you've posted as well.

Very cool, man! Glad I can help! I learned so much from RUKind that it feels good to give a little back.

Welcome friend.

I've been deconstructing GD songs for about the last 8 months as well, mostly on guitar tho.

I'll be looking to learn bass parts eventually, so I look forward to hearing how its goin for you.

Do you have two guitarists? Keys? Are they on the forum? Just curious...

Hey now 600lbsofSin,

We have two guitarists. I think they complement each other well. Neither takes the "Jerry" role or "Bobby" role exclusively, it sort of switches off. We have keys too and he's got more of a Brent style than Keith. He's got a Hammond B-3 though where we play which is pretty cool. The only thing though is he can only play it when we rehearse and so it's on some of the recordings but won't be able to play it live because he can't transport it. I'm really not sure if they are on this forum, good question....I'll have to ask them tonight when we play.

Nice man, sounds fun!

I got jam buds up in Humboldt. Whereabouts u comin from?

The band members are from Sacramento, Grass Valley, and El Dorado Hills each of which is about an hour within each other.

Been to Humboldt....it's quite a distance from me but man is it nice up there!